Hello, Columbus

Yes, I know LinuxCon has come and gone, and I think they’ve got the publicity thing covered, especially with the 20-year thing, the gala party, and with Linus being there and all. The buzz is still going, and that’s good. But if you’re going to a Linux show, make it the Ohio LinuxFest in September. Bradley Kuhn and Cathy Malmrose are keynoting, so you’ll not want to miss that (especially Cathy — Go ZaReason!) Oh, look! It’s a blog item having to do with OLF below.

With the Utah Open Source Conference off the table this fall — rumor has it is coming back as a spring event starting in 2012 — one of the last chances to get in a Linux conference in 2011 is to head to Columbus, Ohio, next weekend for the Ohio Linux Fest.

Ohio Linux Fest runs from Sept. 9-11 at the Greater Columbus Convention Center in downtown Columbus. For the ninth time in as many years, OLF opens its doors again for Open Software professionals, enthusiasts, and everyone interested in learning more about Free and Open Source Software.

That, I hope, includes you.

OLF has three outstanding keynoters this year: Bradley Kuhn, a free software advocate with portfolio, is director of the Software Freedom Conservancy. Cathy Malmrose is a cofounder and CEO of ZaReason, an optimized-for-Linux computer company. Cathy also is a founder of Partimus, an organization which supports computers in education by setting up and maintaining Linux-based computer labs in San Francisco Bay Area schools. Last, and certainly not least, is Jon “maddog” Hall, who of course needs little introduction, but for the record he is the executive director of Linux International, an association of computer users who wish to support and promote the Linux operating system (which accompanies a resume of digital accomplishments too extensive to go into here).

Friday features sessions, an all-day Medical track focusing on the use of Linux and open source software in the health care field, and an all-day Ubucon presented by the Ubuntu project. The day closes with maddog’s keynote.

Saturday opens with Cathy’s keynote followed by a full slate of talks on four different tracks and company demonstrations on the Open Source Solutions Stage. A talk by Bradley will focus on the issues of freedom with software as a service (SaaS). And maddog wraps up Saturday’s talks with a look forward 20 years to free software in the year 2031 before music by Dual Core ends the day.

On Sunday, sharpen your No. 2 pencils: The Linux Professional Institute will host exams, and the Diversity in Open Source workshop takes place on Sunday as well.

Were I to go to this event, naturally I’d catch all the keynotes — especially Cathy Malmrose’s — and this would be my so-called Linux expo “dance card” for the weekend:

On Friday, Three must-see talks would be Mark Terranova’s presentation on “So What Kind of Cult is Linux, Anyway?” — and wondering aloud whether Mark’s going to dress up in the penguin suit — and follow it up with Edward Cherlin’s “Linux for All” before going to Ruth Suehle’s “Off Your Linux Machine and Into Your Doctor’s Office.”

After some stiff coffee Saturday morning, I’d make a point to go to Mel Chua’s “Level-up with Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics: turn your life into a data-driven video game with FOSS” (and anyone who can say that in one breath wins), followed Karlie Robinson’s “The Business of Linux – How Individuals Can Get in the Game,” and later in the afternoon I’d catch Paul Frields’ “Graduating to GUI: PyGObject for Beginners.”

On Sunday, I would take the LPI exam — I should have taken it at SCALE but I was so swamped with double duty in the Fedora booth and in the SCALE front office (I’m co-chair of publicity) that I didn’t have time to put pencil to paper. Next year, count on it.

If you live within driving distance of Columbus — and my definition of driving distance means if you can drive there in a day — you should attend this event. Of course, you can fly there as well if you live further, but get there to be at what has become Linux’s must-attend fall event.

This blog, and all other blogs by Larry the Free Software Guy and Larry Cafiero, are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs CC BY-NC-ND license. In short, this license allows others to download this work and share it with others as long as they credit me as the author, but others can’t change it in any way or use it commercially.

(Larry Cafiero is one of the founders of the Lindependence Project and has just started developing software in his new home office. Watch this space.)

The well trained and courageous Colonel Panik will cover
the Ohio Linux Fest in your honor.

$500 will do it! If 2,000 of you each send $0.50 it will cover
enough of the shipping and handling that Colonel Panik can
get to the OLF and hit all the bases. Even pictures of Mark
Terranova will be posted here or sent to your email.